


(i thought) i was ready to bleed

by LMoriarty



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s03e05 The Reckoning, F/M, First Kiss, Minor Elena Gilbert/Stefan Salvatore, Power Play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-04-28 22:09:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14458833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LMoriarty/pseuds/LMoriarty
Summary: Klaus stares at her, for a very long moment. "You continue to surprise me, don't you, Miss Gilbert," and that's funny, truly, because this is a man that has quite literallykilledher. Coming from Elijah, the formality would be understandable, but this isKlaus. Her killer, her hybrid, herboyjust as much as she is his girl, always and forever, amen."Please, call me MissPetrova," offers Elena, for this is true just as much as Gilbert is. Truer, perhaps, right now, with the memories of Tatia and Katerina just under her skin.





	(i thought) i was ready to bleed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [twocankeepasecret](https://archiveofourown.org/users/twocankeepasecret/gifts).



> today is twocankeepasecret's 22nd birthday!!! which is why this fic is getting posted, and also why this fic exists in general. if you're reading this on may 22nd, you should go [wish her a happy birthday](http://alisonhastings.tumblr.com/ask). if you're reading this on literally any other day, you should go say hi or something. the link takes you directly to her ask box so you really have no excuse not to. just saying.

Elena Gilbert dies.

She comes back to life, yes, but she still dies. For seconds, minutes, hours, Elena is dead, and she is at peace. For the first time since the night her parents died, she is at peace.

There's something very wrong about that.

(There's something very wrong about the fact that she  _doesn't want to wake up_ ).

The thing about Elena Gilbert is that she has fought, and she has fought hard. Her parents died, and she  _lived_ — she's had no choice but to fight hard. But her battles don't end with depression, with a drug addicted sibling, with survivor's guilt. There are days when she wishes they had.

There are days when she is glad they haven't.

Vampires, witches, werewolves— they were only stories, once. Now they're Elena's reality; a vampire boyfriend with a brother that can't decide if he loves her or loathes her, a witch best friend that wants all vampires to die. It's no accident that the blood running through her veins is the key to everything. There is a reason, after all, that it's always a Petrova; a reason that there was Amara and Tatia and Katerina and, finally, at the end of the world, Elena Gilbert herself.

Death walks and Death smiles and Death looks like a teenage girl, like brown hair and brown eyes and teeth a little too sharp to be completely human.

Death looks like Elena Gilbert.

(Death  _is_ Elena Gilbert).

And so when Elena dies, when her blood is drained from her body, when the curse is broken, she knows that she will not stay dead.

There is vampire blood in her system.

Of course she won't stay dead.

She just isn't supposed to come back  _human_.

Her blood  _means_ something when she's human. Elena doesn't want to be a vampire, has never wanted that, but there is a reason that Petrova's always end up dead or in transition. Their blood is too important for anything else. Every drop wasted means the start of another battle.

(How many wars will begin, if there is no blood left in her body?)

Elena had prepared for everything, every option, every possibility,  _except_ keeping her mortality. That was never the way the story was supposed to go. That was never the way the story  _could_ have gone, not with vampire blood in her system. So Elena had thought, and she had plotted, and she had devised a new plan.

She would wake up in transition, like her friends expected. And then, once the twenty four hours came to a close, once she had refused to take even a sip of blood—

Elena would die.

(Being a vampire was never going to be an option for Elena Gilbert. Damon forcing her to drink his blood changed nothing.)

And then it would be  _over_. No more doppelgängers. Not even a  _chance_ that there could possibly be another one, another girl with her face and her smile and her  _trauma_.

But she wakes up human.

Jenna and John do not wake up at all.

Still, if there's one thing Elena Gilbert is good at, it's adapting. So she adapts. She gets back up, and keeps on fighting. Keeps on  _living_ , even though she was ~~eager~~ ready to die.

She attends funerals, and searches for Stefan. Does her school work, and learns how to fight. Elena prepares for the inevitable, prepares for the moment Klaus discovers she's still alive.

She's not sure if she's pleased or if she's disappointed by how  _long_ that takes. At any rate, she is certainly shocked.

It's only a couple months, and yet Elena had expected days, maybe. Weeks, at best. Not months. Not the entire  _summer_. And yet there they are, back in school, and there  _he_ is, hand tight around her arm as he drags her towards the gym, towards her friends.

There's a thousand questions running through her mind — how he figured it out, if there's any way to save her friends or at the very least  _warn_ them, whether or not she'll make it out of this alive — but when he calls her  _his girl_ , some part of her immediately accepts it as the truth. It shouldn't be, because she's  _Elena_   _Gilbert_ , she's Stefan's girl, Damon's girl, an argument could even be made that she's  _Matt's_ girl. At any rate, she's definitely not Klaus'. But...

She is Elena  _Petrova_ , too. Katherine's doppelgänger,  _Tatia's_ doppelgänger— even if she hates Klaus, loathes him, wants him to die... her face is one that he's known for a thousand years. Her body, something he's known for a  _thousand years_. Because it's  _her_ , isn't it? It's always been her, no matter the differences in personalities, or changes in eras. At the end of the day, it was Elena's blood that created vampires, Elena's blood that broke his curse, Elena's blood that was spilled time and again for the benefit of nobody but Klaus Mikaelson.

She's his doppelgänger. His sacrifice. His  _girl_.

Deep down, Elena knows that she's never going to be happy with Stefan, or with Damon. Knows that the reason Katherine took them both is because she felt  _empty_ otherwise, a Klaus-sized hole in her soul. But this is very,  _very_ deep down, and no matter how much Elena may  _know_ it, she'll never act on it.

Perhaps, in the future, if she makes it out of this alive, Elena will choose neither Stefan nor Damon. But she won't be picking  _Klaus_ , either. His girl or not, when Klaus tells her, "You are supposed to be dead", asks her, "What are we going to do about that?", Elena knows he plans on killing her all over again.

(There is a part of her that thinks:  _finally_. That thinks:  _it's about time someone fixed that mistake_. That thinks:  _hurry up and do it_.

You're not supposed to come back from the dead. You're  _certainly_ not supposed to come back from the dead  _human_. Elena knows this, had prepared for this. She is  _still_ prepared for this, which is why, even as he's pulling her towards the gym, towards what could very well be her death, she says, "If you're going to kill me, just  _do it_." Elena means it.

She hopes he listens.)

Their arrival to the gym is, to the surprise of precisely nobody, suitably dramatic. Klaus throws the doors open, and swiftly informs the lingering students that prank night is over. Elena isn't surprised that they listen — he's good at commanding people, and with an appearance somewhere between twenty and thirty, it's all too easy for them to imagine he's a teacher — but his  _voice_ catches her off guard.

Elena's heard him speak with an American accent before, technically, but it wasn't really  _him_. It was Alaric, and Alaric's voice, even if Klaus was the one controlling what he did and said. To hear  _Klaus'_ voice go from British to American within seconds is... startling. Unfamiliar.

Elena doesn't like unfamiliar. She's used to it by now, has had to be ever since vampires started showing up, but she's never  _liked_ it. This change, even, no matter how irrelevant it ultimately is, is uncomfortable— and it only lasts for a matter of seconds. Though, perhaps that is less because of the shift in accents, and more because, well. It's Klaus.

There is a part of her, deep down inside, that has known him,  _loved_ him, for hundreds of years. He's  _familiar_ , even though he shouldn't be, even though by all paths of logic he  _couldn't_ be. She's not Tatia, not Katerina, and yet, and  _yet_...

She is. Just a little bit, she is.

(Elena wonders what it would be like to kiss him. It's something her body has done before, perhaps hundreds of times. She wonders how familiar it'd feel.

She also wonders if she was lying, when she swore she'd never act on the millennia-old attraction between them. Because Elena  _wants_ to, and that? That is  _terrifying_.)

In the time it takes for Elena to ponder his new accent, Klaus has compelled Dana to stand on one leg, has compelled Chad to beat her if she falters, and Elena is once more reminded that he is still a monster. The reminder is ultimately welcome, though she wishes her peers' lives didn't need to get put at risk for her to realize it.

To get her mind off Klaus' mouth, she turns to him, and asks, "Where's Stefan? What did you do to him?" Because he should  _be_ there. Ripper or not, he's still in love with her, had been when they met in the forest and when he saw her in his old apartment. Elena hates herself for thinking like this, but if he still loves her then he won't  _kill_ her, and the part of her that  _doesn't_ want to die desperately craves that kind of security.

"Stefan's on a timeout," Klaus says, dismissive.

The doors slam open, the same doors they had walked through just a short while before. Bonnie and Matt enter, and her heart stops dead in her chest, because no,  _no_ , her friends need to be  _safe_.

"Bonnie," Elena urges, "get out of here!"

It's too late, she knows, and she's right, because Klaus is in front of them in an instant. "I was wondering when you'd show up," Klaus says. "Now we can get started." He turns to Dana, who is visibly struggling. "Ah, Dana. Why don't you relax? You and Chad sit right."

As they relax, so does Elena, though she knows she shouldn't. She's intimately aware that he would be perfectly content to watch Chad kill Dana, might very well still make it happen, but he's at least given them a brief reprieve.

"I assume you're the reason Elena's still walking around alive?" Klaus asks Bonnie.

"That's right," says Bonnie. She glances over at Elena. "If you want to blame someone, blame me." She's not wrong, exactly. It is, technically speaking, Bonnie's fault, but it is John's, too. Her uncle. Her  _father_. Christ, that one will never stop hurting.

"Oh, there's no need for blame, love," Klaus assures her. "Just your witchy interference seems to have caused some undesirable side effects. And since you caused the problem, I'm going to have you find the fix."

As if she had been waiting for a cue, a pretty blonde enters the gym, dragging Tyler in with her. He says something, no doubt to the effect of 'let me go', but Elena doesn't hear. She's too busy examining the new player, trying to figure out who the girl is and why she's there so Elena can regain some semblance of control. The girl is rather attractive, tall and fair-skinned with long hair and blue eyes. She looks just a little bit like Klaus.

"I'd like you all to meet my sister, Rebekah," Klaus says, because  _of course_ it's his sister. Elena's admittedly a little surprised he undaggered her, but  _shit_ , if he's awoken Rebekah then what about the  _rest_ of his siblings? "Word of warning: she can be quite mean."

"Don't be an ass," Rebekah retorts, and throws Tyler into Klaus' arms.

The action jolts Elena back into the present. "Leave him alone," she demands, voice steady if a little high-pitched. While her and Tyler may not be all that close  _now_ , they had been at least sort of friends before her parents had died. Tyler's parties had always been the best of the best and, well. Between her high tolerance and her perfect keg stand form, Elena was typically the highlight of them.

"I'm going to make this very simple," Klaus announces. "Every time I attempt to turn a werewolf into a vampire hybrid, they die during the transition. It's quite horrible, actually." There's a pause, long enough that it seems like he's done. But that can't be it, that can't be the end, because  _Tyler_ is here, and—

He bites his wrist, breaking skin and bringing blood to the surface. Elena realizes very quickly what's about to happen, mouth opening to say something,  _do_ something, but she finds herself frozen in her spot. Klaus presses his wrist against Tyler's mouth, forcing the werewolf to drink the blood.

Klaus looks over at them, wrist rapidly healing itself. "I need you to find a way to save my hybrids, Bonnie. And for Tyler's sake, you better hurry," he tells her, and he looks— amused, almost. Like he doesn't really care how this'll end, because it'll hurt them either way. Klaus smirks, turning back to Tyler. He wraps his hands around Tyler's neck, snapping it in one swift movement. The werewolf crumbles to the floor in front of them, very much dead.

Elena gasps out a  _no_ , heart thrumming in her chest. All the other hybrids had  _died_ , and this is  _Tyler_ , her friend once upon a time. Caroline's boyfriend, now. If he dies, if Tyler  _dies_ —

He can't. He  _can't_.

Klaus smiles at their reactions, because he is a killer, and a monster, and a murderer;  _her_ murderer and now Tyler's.

She wishes she could turn off her emotions, the way vampires can. Wishes she can stifle the part of her that looks at Klaus, and thinks: Niklaus. That thinks: Nik. That thinks: lover, fiancé, husband, friend, forever and always, always and forever.

But she can't, and so she's forced to stand there in front of him, thinking:  _that should be me on the floor._ It is, if nothing else, the truth.

Rebekah, Bonnie, and Matt leave to do— something, figure out how to save Tyler, whatever. Elena makes her way over to Dana, who has to be so  _scared_ , the way Elena was, once. They talk, quiet even though that won't stop vampires from listening, but mostly they hug. Elena has never wanted to drag other people into her mess, and what if they  _can't_ create hybrids, what if it can only just be Klaus? What if Tyler  _dies_? Elena can't deal with that, not after losing everyone else, her mother and her father and her other mother and her other father and her  _aunt_ , god, she misses Jenna so much.

The doors reopen, and Elena glances over, expecting to see Bonnie or Matt again or, shit, Caroline, where has Caroline been? Instead it's Stefan, her Stefan, and oh  _god_ , she thought she would be happy or pleased or  _something_ to see him, but she  _isn't_ , she's just shocked, just surprised, just stunned, perhaps even a little bit scared.

"Stefan," she whispers, pulling away from Dana. He looks the same as he did months ago — the same haircut and the same kind of clothes and the same  _face_  — and god, that hurts, that  _hurts_. It would've hurt if he had changed, of course, but he  _didn't_ , and this hurts  _too_.

Stefan ignores her entirely, face blank as he looks at the hybrid near her. "Klaus," he says.

"Come to save your damsel, mate?" asks Klaus, frowning. He looks... upset, annoyed. And that means— timeout, Klaus had said earlier, Stefan's on a  _timeout_. So he had tried to protect her, or lied about her, or, or—

"I came to ask for your forgiveness," Stefan tells him. "And pledge my loyalty."

"Well, you broke that pledge once already," Klaus points out. Elena wonders what exactly happened between them, though she doubts she'll be able to get it out of either man.

"Elena means nothing to me anymore," says Stefan. Elena recoils, though she knows he's lying. She's not— conceited, you know, but Elena's  _pretty_ , and Stefan and her are... god, they might not stay together forever, but they will always love each other. That's just... that's just a  _fact_. "And whatever you ask of me, I will do."

"Fair enough," Klaus says, and Elena wonders if he knows Stefan's lying, too. "Let's drink on it," he suggests, and points to Dana and Chad, "Kill them."

Elena's heart stops dead in her chest. No.  _No_. She's not friends with them, never has been, but god,  _no_. And Stefan, her friend, her boyfriend, does. not. move.

"What are you waiting for?  _Kill them_."

"No!" Elena shouts. No, no, no, she can't let this happen, she  _can't_. "Stefan,  _don't_. He's not going to hurt me. He already said—"

Klaus hits her, hard enough that she  _falls_ , crumbles onto the floor rather similar to the way Tyler had. Elena presses her hand to her cheek, wondering how quickly the bruise will form. She's been yelled at and bitten and grabbed and  _killed_ before, but god did that ever  _hurt_.

Stefan rushed forwards, fangs out, and oh. Oh. That's why Klaus did it. Not to shut her up, but to determine Stefan's loyalties, once and for all, and they're  _not with him_. Klaus grabs him by the throat, "She means nothing to you? Your lies just keep piling up."

"Let her go!" he pleads. "I'll do whatever you want, you have my word!" And yet he had just proved his word meant nothing, didn't he? Elena can't fault him for lying, she would have done the same, but she would have been  _smarter_ about it.

(If you're going to lie,  _commit_ to it. Stefan said she meant nothing to him. He should've acted like it. When Elena fell, he should've stayed  _still_.)

"You word doesn't mean much," Klaus points out. "I lived by  _your word_ all summer, during which time I never had to resort to this," and he leans in, pupils dilating as he compels him, "Stop fighting."

"Don't do this," Stefan begs. "Don't do this." Elena mouths the words alongside him. Don't do this, don't do this, don't do this, god, please  _don't do this_. She doesn't want to watch Stefan die.

She doesn't want to  _watch Stefan die_.

"I didn't want to," Klaus tells him. "All I wanted was your allegiance. Now I'm going to have to take it." He leans in again, to compel him, maybe to take away his emotions entirely, and— and— and Elena  _can't watch that happen_.

"Stop!" Elena shouts, and this—  _this_ is when things start to change. "Please, Klaus,  _stop_. I'll do anything, whatever you want, just  _stop_. You don't need to hurt him. You don't need to do this."

Klaus is in front of her in an instant. Stefan collapses onto the ground behind him, gasping for air, but neither of them glance over. Their focus has left him entirely, shifting to rest solely on one another. "Would you, Elena?" he asks, his mouth twitching. Whether it's because of amusement or something darker, Elena's not sure, but her eyes flicker down to his lips to examine the action. When Elena's gaze shifts back up to his eyes, he looks pleased. "Would you do  _anything_?"

She nods; a swift, determined movement. "Yes," Elena says, and it's true. Because this is Stefan. Because she has always been in the habit of sacrificing herself to save other people. Because her life  _doesn't matter_ , not really, never has. Never will. Because she is the doppelgänger and she was born to  _die_. "I would."

Klaus smiles, wider that he would if it was a genuine smile, likely as wide as he can. It's all teeth, sharp even though there's no vampirism involved, and Elena is reminded very quickly that he's not just a vampire anymore. He doesn't need  _fangs_ for his teeth to be able to kill. He's a werewolf, now, too. Because of her, and her blood.

His smile is not a kind one, but it is a comfort nonetheless. She's quite good with unkind smiles, with deadly smiles, with I'm-going-to-destroy-you smiles, after all the time she has spent with Damon.

"Would you kiss me?" Klaus asks her, finally, and she goes incredibly still. Wonders, for a moment, if Originals could read minds, if he knew she had been thinking about it earlier. "Elena Gilbert, my sacrifice girl. My little doppelgänger. Would you  _kiss me_ if it meant saving your ripper?"

Elena's eyes flicker behind him, towards Stefan. He's pulled himself onto his knees now, but just barely. Stefan, seeing her gaze on him, shakes his head. Tells her  _no_. Even though it would spare him more pain, perhaps spare his life altogether, he says  _no_.

But, Elena supposes, it's not up to him.

She turns back to Klaus, easily pinpoints the humor in his eyes. He doesn't expect her to do it. Thinks she'll be horrified, or disgusted, as if her body is not one that he has touched a hundred times before. As if her lips are not lips that he has kissed just as many times. He thinks she'll say  _no_ , and, perhaps, that is the only reason he suggested it.

There are limits to even Klaus' monstrosity.

(And isn't that something? The fact that  _Klaus_ prefers his girls willing when  _Damon Salvatore_ , hundreds and hundreds of years younger, can't bring himself to particularly care.)

When Elena smiles back at him, slow but sure, it is just as deadly as the smile he is directing towards her. Less sharp, perhaps, but still sharper than a human could ever manage. (She is a doppelgänger, a copy of a girl that lived both a thousand years and five hundred years in the past. Of course she isn't human). "You think I'll say no, don't you," Elena says, and it's not a question. This is a game, after all. Klaus plays to scare, to terrify, to destroy. Elena plays to  _win_.

Klaus examines her for a moment further, before he inclines his head. "Of cour—"

She is kissing him before he can finish his sentence, lips colliding against his own as Elena surges forwards. His mouth is warm, like Stefan's, like Matt's, and part of her (albeit a very small part) is disappointed, because this isn't supposed to be  _normal_. Normalcy isn't what she was aiming for, and the fact that they can even achieve it is... strange. He's the hybrid and she's the doppelgänger and there's nothing  _normal_ about either of them, and yet, and  _yet_ —

Maybe they're not normal themselves, but this is how they were always supposed to end up, how they've ended up time and again throughout history. And  _that's_ what the other part of her is thinking about, the part that has done this before, the part that has  _kissed Klaus before_. There's something inside her that's ecstatic she's doing it again.

It's been a thousand years since Tatia, five hundred since Katherine, and now they're kissing him again, through Elena, because  _they're_ Elena. There has only ever been the one doppelgänger. Katherine still lives, yes, but as much as they are their own people, they are each other, too. Just a little bit. But that little bit's more than enough, here.

Klaus doesn't kiss her back at first, though she attributes that to surprise, apprehension, bewilderment,  _something_ , because he does eventually return it. Elena threads her hands through his hair, pulling him closer, like she can't get enough of him (to be fair, the part of her that isn't really her  _can't_ ). His hands stay by his sides, not willing to touch her no matter how into the kiss she appears to be. Coercion is not consent, kiss-me-or-I'll-kill-your-boyfriend is not consent — regardless of whether or not he meant it — and Elena wonders if he's regretting ever asking.

Elena murmurs a  _Nik_ against his lips, for Tatia, for herself, for the girl she used to be and the girl she can never be again. Klaus either doesn't hear or doesn't care, though Elena suspects it's the former even with his enhanced hearing in mind. She's sure the nickname would've made him angry, and he's remaining perfectly calm, which... isn't particularly in character, so. He probably didn't hear.

It's not a particularly nice kiss, in the end. It's nothing like a kiss between friends — and certainly nothing like a kiss between  _lovers_  — would be like. The intimacy and familiarity is there, just like Elena thought it would be, but there's no love.

Just victory.

Ultimately, that's all there would ever be between them. And this time,  _Elena won_. Power moves have always been her strong suit— the time she stabbed herself to re-dagger Elijah comes to mind. If she can beat him, she can beat Klaus, and however momentary this success is, it's a success nonetheless.

Much like how Elena was the one to initiate the kiss, she's also the one to end it, tugging fingers out of hair and pulling lips away from lips. When she's back to where she was before, close to him but not as close as she just was, Elena grins. This one isn't for show, with sharp teeth and gleaming eyes. It's amused and exhilarated all at once, face flushed and eyes wide. She's always loved to win.

"Sorry," she says, despite her grin. "What were you saying? Something about how I, of  _course_ , would not kiss you." Elena tilts her head, contemplative, because that felt  _good_.  _Winning_ felt good. "Is Stefan safe now, then? I believe that's what you said." Because she didn't kiss him for her. Part of her wanted it, of course, but she didn't do it for herself. She did it for  _Stefan_.

Klaus stares at her, for a very long moment. "You continue to surprise me, don't you, Miss Gilbert," and that's funny, truly, because this is a man that has quite literally  _killed_ her. Coming from Elijah, the formality would be understandable, but this is  _Klaus_. Her killer, her hybrid, her  _boy_ just as much as she is his girl, always and forever, amen.

"Please, call me Miss  _Petrova_ ," offers Elena, for this is true just as much as Gilbert is. Truer, perhaps, right now, with the memories of Tatia and Katerina just under her skin.

"As pleasant as this has all been," Klaus says, and Elena wonders if he means it, "it's time to get back to business, love."

He turns around, likely to go back to compelling Stefan, and Elena grabs his arm. She goes to say something,  _anything_ , because he  _promised_ , but she doesn't get the chance.

Rebekah marches back into the gym, this time by herself. As soon as she sees Elena, she rushes over, phone in hand. "Where is it?" she snarls, looking furious. Elena wishes she knew what Rebekah was talking about, what her friends had  _done_ , because she doesn't know what to  _say_. "Where's my necklace?"

"What are you talking about?" Klaus asks her, and if he sounds a little annoyed, well. Perhaps he was interested in finding out what Elena had planned on saying.

"She has my necklace," Rebekah tells him, and he clearly knows what that means, because now  _Klaus_ looks annoyed too. She shoves the phone over to Klaus. " _Look_."

Klaus examines it for a moment, then glances towards Stefan. "Well, well," he says. "More lies."

"Where is it?" Rebekah repeats, eyes back on the doppelgänger.

Elena sneaks a peak at the phone, trying to determine what's even  _happening_. The photo she sees, zoomed up on her neck, makes her pale drastically. Her necklace, the one Stefan gave her  _years_ ago— that's  _Rebekah's_. Another thing of hers that isn't really hers. First her face, now her jewelry. Christ. "I don't have it anymore," she says, and it's the  _truth_. She knows better than to lie, after all the lies Stefan has already been caught telling.

Rebekah's eyes flash, like she's on the verge of vamping out and attacking her. Elena plans on saying something to deter her — she doesn't have time for this,  _Tyler_ doesn't have time for this — but Rebekah doesn't bother waiting. She rushes forward and sinks fangs into her neck, a furious reaction just as much as it is Rebekah simply being hungry. The pain is brief — Klaus pulls her off immediately, dragging Rebekah off to the side — but her wound bleeds regardless.

"Knock it off," Klaus orders, voice carrying due to the gym's acoustics.

Rebekah glares. "Make her tell me where it is, Nik!"

Elena gently presses her hand against the bleeding wound, praying the smell of blood won't set Stefan off, who has already been compelled to 'stop fighting'. She isn't sure how deep that particular compulsion goes, doesn't know how much it'll effect him, but she needs him to be  _okay_. Otherwise the kiss will have been for nothing, otherwise  _everything_ will have been for  _nothing_. Elena doesn't need to having  _kissing Klaus_ on her conscious.

"Where's the necklace, sweetheart?" Klaus asks her. "Be honest."

"I'm telling the truth," Elena says, except she has no way of proving it. She's been preparing for Klaus' return for  _months_ , has been on  _vervain_ for months. Elena hates to think it, but that could be a mistake. "Katherine stole it."

He frowns. "Katerina. Of course." Klaus looks vaguely annoyed, though not nearly as much as Rebekah does. But he believes her. He  _believes_ her, and Elena's surprised just as much as she is appreciative. "Well, that's unfortunate. If we had the necklace it would make things a whole lot easier for your witch, but since we're doing this the hard way, let's put a clock on it, shall we?" Turning his focus to the clock on the wall, he sets a time in. A buzzer sounds as it appears.

Klaus makes his way back over to Stefan. "Twenty minutes," he compels. "If Bonnie hasn't found a solution by then, I want you to feed. Only this time, I want you to feed on Elena." He smirks. "You know you want to."

Elena stares at him. "No— Klaus— you  _promised_!" she says, desperate, because this isn't fair to Stefan, because there is still a part of her that  _doesn't want to die_. "Don't do this to him. Don't do this to  _me_."

He doesn't look at her. "No one leaves," he says. "If she tries to run, fracture her spine."

Rebekah looks at them for a long, hard moment, before turning to leave with Klaus.

"Klaus," Elena says, loudly, because she is  _still alive_ , because she is willing to take as many risks as she has to if it means her friends are okay. "Niklaus.  _Nik_."

The duo spin around, both of them flashing their vampire faces at her. "You  _dare_ ," Rebekah hisses, but Klaus dismisses her with a wave of his hand. However reluctantly, the blonde storms out of the gym, likely to go find Bonnie. Elena wonders, briefly, if she's okay. If Matt and Caroline, wherever she is, are okay. If  _Tyler_ is going to be okay.

Klaus, unlike his sister, remains a moment longer. "What," he says, harshly, "did you just call me?"

Elena tilts her chin up. " _Nik_."

"We may have kisse—"

"It has nothing to do with that," she says immediately, overall dismissive of his anger. He's killed her, drained her of her blood. Nothing he can do to her will be worse than that, and she  _knows_ that, knows that the only thing that will still truly  _phase_ her is if she dies all over again, and ultimately that will be a relief, won't it. Dying will always be a relief.

She smiles, decision made. Elena peels her hand away from her neck, and holds it out towards him. There's blood on it. "It has to do with the curse, Klaus. It has to do with your  _hybrids_ ," she tells him, and then laughs, because  _god_. This feels good. Standing up for herself feels  _good_. "The answer is  _right in front of you_ , and you're trying to, what? Talk to some long dead witch?"

" _Excuse_ me?"

"Well, I mean," Elena shrugs, because it really  _is_ completely obvious. She might be wrong, of course, but she probably isn't. Not about this. It's what she was born for, after all. To give him her blood, time and again. "My blood created vampires. My blood broke your curse. It stands to reason... that perhaps my blood is needed here, too."

He pauses, contemplative. "You think all I need to do is feed them your blood."

"Presuming you can even  _make_ hybrids?" Elena points out. "Yes."

"What do you mean,  _presuming_?"

"Do you not know your own history?" she asks, incredulous. Elena's been thinking about this since she first realized he wanted to create hybrids, sure, but that was only  _months_ previous. Klaus has had a  _millennium_ to ponder the topic. "You were turned into a vampire, you killed someone, and your werewolf genes kicked in. Everyone you're trying to turn is  _already_ a werewolf. And, I mean, are you even unique in this? Who's to say that any random vampire can't go turn someone, have them kill somebody, and whoops, turns out they're a werewolf too. Has anyone  _tried_? Original or not, I don't think you're particularly special."

Klaus snarls, a low growl from his chest gurgling out. His vampire face makes a reappearance, though his eyes flash yellow, a reminder that he's a hybrid, that he's  _sacrificed_ her before. "You  _dare_ ," he says, the same way Rebekah did moments before.

"Yes, Klaus,  _I dare_ ," Elena says. It's extraordinarily difficult to stop herself from rolling her eyes, and she only just barely manages. "Just like I dared every other time I've seen you, or your brother, or  _any vampire that's wanted me dead_. You may not know this, but there's been quite a few."

"I am an Original vampire, the  _only_ hybrid—"

"Exactly. The  _only_ hybrid." Elena actually does roll her eyes this time, because she isn't  _scared_ of him anymore, because she needs to  _know_ before she lets him take her blood. "Have you  _tried_? Just answer the question."

" _Yes_ ," Klaus spits out. "I've  _tried_. And it's never worked. The magic is... very particular, and it needed certain ingredients that simply couldn't be achieved without first breaking the curse. I wasn't just  _turned_ , I was  _created_. No other werewolf can naturally become what I am." He relaxes, just a fraction, and his vampire face retracts. "But I  _can_ create hybrids. It worked, briefly, on the others, even if the conclusion was... less than satisfactory. Though with your blood—"

Elena inclines her head. "That's all I needed to know," she says. "Now, about my blood— may we speak somewhere privately?" Her eyes flicker past him to Stefan, who is still on the floor, before returning to Klaus. "Tyler doesn't need it yet."

"I suppose," he says, and then they're gone. When they come to a stop, they're in Alaric's classroom. Of  _course_ they are. It's oddly symbolic, which Elena imagines is rather the point. They met here, in a way. He was dressed up in Alaric's body, yes, and she had no clue he wasn't actually her teacher, but... they met here nonetheless. "What do you want to say, love?"

"I'll give you my blood willingly," Elena tells him. "I'll be your personal blood bag, and I won't complain or try to get my way out of it. But I want your  _word_ that, if I do, you'll leave my friends and family  _alone_."

"My word," Klaus echoes. "I'm not Elijah."

"No, you're not," says Elena. "But you  _are_ Klaus. An Original, a hybrid. Maybe you're not the noble brother, but I think you can put your pride to the side and make a deal with me."

He shrugs, nonchalant. "I can take your blood without your consent," reminds Klaus. He's smirking, yet Elena can't help but think that's the  _only_ thing he'd take without consent. "Why should I agree?"

"Because if you don't," Elena tells him, and she's smirking, too. It's not something she's done before — more Katherine's thing than hers — but she knows how it fits on her face. Knows she looks just as arrogant as he does. "I'll kill myself. And then you can't make any more hybrids, ever."

"You would never—"

"Wouldn't I?" asks Elena. "I've died, already. I'm not scared of doing it again. I guess I take after Katherine that way."

He scowls. "Katerina betrayed me—"

"She was a young girl who just found out the person she thought she was going to marry wanted her dead," Elena corrects, "and so she  _ran_. That's not betrayal, Klaus. That's not even close."

Klaus looks at her for a moment. It's surely clear that she won't fold, not on this, not ever, which ultimately leaves him with a choice to make. He can either keep her safe and create hybrids, or watch her die and be unable to turn anyone. It's an easy enough decision to make, Elena thinks, but she has a lot of friends, or at least a lot of people she can  _call_ her friend. She doubts he's interested in ensuring the safety of every single person in Mystic Falls simply because they talked to Elena once, and oh, of _course_ that makes them friends. He knows she'd do it, too; look him dead in the eye and name everyone in the town. Klaus sighs. "You can pick ten," he says, "to keep safe."

"Jeremy," Elena picks, automatically. Klaus raises one finger. "Bonnie. Caroline. Stefan. Alaric. Matt." She hesitates, trying to determine her last four. "Tyler, though I doubt you'd ever want to hurt your very first hybrid. Liz, Caroline's mom. And if Jeremy ever falls in love... I want his partner to be safe."

"And, for your final person, may I go ahead and put down Damon Salvatore?"

She looks at Klaus, closely. "Katherine Pierce," she says, instead. "Katerina Petrova. I want her safe."

"No," he says, point blank. "Absolutely not."

"I don't want Damon safe, I don't  _care_ about Damon, but she's  _mine_ ," Elena says, and her heart aches in her chest, screaming out a save her, save her, save  _you_. "Klaus, she's  _mine_. My doppelgänger just as much as I am hers— you don't understand, you don't get it, you  _can't_ , but  _Klaus_. She's  _mine_."

"I'm not saving her,  _protecting_ her— she  _ran_ , she fucking—" he growls, deep in his throat. "Five hundred years, I  _finally_ found a doppelgänger, a way to break the curse, and she  _ran_."

"And you  _murdered her family_ for it," she counters. "You already  _won_ , okay, it's  _over_. She left, and you got your revenge, and— and you've already broken the curse, Klaus. The curse is  _gone_ , you're a hybrid— and she's  _still scared_. She shouldn't be scared anymore. Give it a rest. Let it go. If not for her, then for  _me_."

"For  _you_?"

"For  _my blood_ , christ, Klaus, it doesn't matter, just," she sighs through her teeth. "I get safety for Jeremy, Bonnie, Caroline, Stefan, Alaric, Matt, Tyler, Liz, Jeremy's future partner,  _Katherine_. You get unlimited access to my blood and hybrids. Deal or no deal?"

There is a moment of silence, but she knows what he'll say. Elena's always been good at using her body, her blood, as leverage; has done it time and again with Damon, with Elijah, and now with Klaus, amongst numerous others. She's always been good at keeping her friends and family safe even at the expense of her own survival.

She's always been good at  _winning_.

"Let's get Tyler your blood," Klaus says, finally. "If it works... then we have a deal."

And Elena Gilbert most certainly just won.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on tumblr @ [laniemoriarty](http://laniemoriarty.tumblr.com). 
> 
> if there's anything in this story that's factually incorrect (like where they are in the gym, how they're moving, whatever) that's because i didn't like... rewatch the episode to write this lmao i just found a transcript. 
> 
> also, re: the kiss with klaus. i didn't tag coerced kiss/dubious consent/etc mainly because i felt like that aspect of it was more or less addressed in-text, but if anyone wants me to add those, just lmk and i will. same goes for any other tag you think should be included, like canonical character death or temporary death or smth for tyler.


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